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Between 1898 and 1918, many US states introduced the initiative, referendum and recall, known as direct democracy. Most interpreters have seen the motives for these reforms as purely political, but this study demonstrates that the call for direct democracy was rooted in antimonopoly sentiment

Between 1898 and 1918, many US states introduced the initiative, referendum and recall, known as direct democracy. Most interpreters have seen the motives for these reforms as purely political, but this study demonstrates that the call for direct democracy was rooted in antimonopoly sentiment.

Argues that the populist movement in the late-19th-century US formed a cohesive language of protest that allowed Americans to frame their economic grievances in terms that recalled the legacy of the American revolution. Populist appeals are discussed as standing in a long line of populist republicanism that interpreted economic & social change as the product of specific political acts undertaken by corrupt politicians & legislatures on behalf of special interests. In these movements, the language of republicanism was fused with the belief in the absolute sovereignty of the people to produce a stable theory of the political economy. It is suggested that with the advent of the modern corporate economy in the early 20th century, this theory was supplanted by modern liberalism that aimed at harnessing the powers of mass production for all Americans. Contemporary populist appeals are interpreted as only superficially related to the earlier vernacular because these are aimed at the federal government rather than at corporate greed. D. M. Smith

Over the past few decades, historians engaged in the study of American Populism have advanced a number of conflicting interpretations of the last great protest movement of the nineteenth century. Among the most influential representations of Populism have been the following: Populists as reactionary and vaguely anti-Semitic predecessors of American fascism, as agrarian romantics nostalgically clinging to the Jeffersonian ideal of the independent yeoman, as modern reformers embracing an American version of social democracy, as agrarian republicans aiming to build a cooperative commonwealth on the basis of mutuality, and as true radicals offering the final challenge to the rise of corporate capitalism in America. Although no final agreement on the true nature of Populism has been achieved, despite the impressive scholarly output that has made the study of Populism into a minor cottage industry among historians, there has been a powerful trend toward a renewed appreciation of the radical character of Populist protest. In challenging the dominance of the two major parties and in advocating a comprehensive program of economic and social reform, American Populists are widely regarded as reflecting a ground swell of opposition to corporate America. With the demise of Populism after the disastrous election of 1896, the hopes for building a radically different America faded.

The American professions took on their modern shape in the period between 1870 and 1920. After Jacksonian democracy had severely weakened the organizational structures of the professions, a series of interrelated reforms raised academic standards, improved professional schools, and standardized and strengthened licensing requirements.